[P.S. this chapter is from the perspective of system-sama.]

The story of Shiva is unlike any other. After all, extraordinary entities aren't born out of the ordinary story and Shiva, the Immortal One was no ordinary god. Some may find his story disturbing and some might think it was just straight-up lies. But one thing is clear, Shiva, the Mahadev, the god of the gods, had never wanted to be who he was. And now was the time to tell why.

A lot of people say that when there was nothing, there was him, The Immortal one. They say he was the overseer of the universe's birth. The catalyst to all life, including gods and mortals alike. But it was something no one could know for sure. After all, if he was the only one there then who had seen him looking over the universe as it slowly stabilised itself from all the chaos? No one, right?

No one had proof whether the immortal one was the one who made life possible in the universe or not. How could anyone have proof of anything like that? It was simply impossible, but System sama knew all about it because he was a part of Shiva's conscience. He knew everything about the immortal one and he was telling the same to Arnold because he could learn from the mistakes of Shiva. anyhow, let's get back to the story.

It is often told that the Immortal one is timeless, which would be true if he existed even before the universe was born. After all, if he existed before everything, then Shiva existed before time as well because time was a concept that came along when the universe was born.

But how could Shiva exist when there was nothing? Even if he was a god, he would still have to be born sometime right? Well, that was true. But before all that, let's just say that the universe isn't the first of its kind. The brightest minds of the universe believe that the universe was the beginning of everything. But what if I told you that's only half of the truth?

You see, before this universe came into being about 14 billion years ago, there existed an old universe and before that existed another one and another one. No one knows how long has this cycle of universal birth, death and rebirth had been going on, but it had been going on for at least a few trillion years because the immortal one has been overseeing this operation for that long.

However, each time the universe is born, the same things happen all over again. Similar galaxies are formed, similar solar systems are formed and even the planets stay more or less the same. And yet in every few billion years, the universe resets itself as if it wants to achieve something on its own. Like a balance.

The creation of the universe is equivalent to a child making a drawing. The child wants to make the perfect art every time they lift a pencil or a brush in their hands. At that moment they have the most chaotic energy within them similar to the energy of a big bang.

However, that energy dissipates one the child fails to create the masterpiece and throw away all of their hard work. But after that, they require some time to cool off, and once they do, they once again pick up the brush and start drawing with the same enthusiasm as they had before.

The brush, however, doesn't know who is controlling it. It just knows his duty and to keep on doing what it was made to do. To the brush, it didn't matter who was using it and why it was being used to redraw the same thing again and again. But the brush doesn't question, it only does what it was made to do.

The child may fail time and time again. Still, they don't ever give up on their dreams and keep pushing through in hope that the next time would be the final time they would succeed. In this case, Shiva was the brush and the universe was the painting.

But when the other gods said Shiva was the first one to witness the creation of the universe, they weren't entirely wrong. After all, he had seen the birth of every universe but the first one. A universe that he himself was a part of.

It happened trillions of years ago when the first universe was created by the unknown being of supreme strength called the Prime Creator. As usual, chaos ensued planets collided with planets, stars collided with stars, entire galaxies collided with each other. It was a beautiful yet at the same time terrifying scene. But soon the universe calmed itself down and started taking its shape for the first time.

After a few billion years following the strict chaos, the first Earth came into being. But back then, it wasn't known as Earth, it had a different name. It was called Aratia. A land of peace and harmony. Shiva was born on this planet in a tribe that resided in the harshest of the environments, mostly in hilly inaccessible areas. They lived their lives as nomads who would rather die than take up arms against their fellow beings.

However, not everyone had the same ideals as them. The good and the evil always went hand in hand, they were two sides of the same coin. Just like chaos to calm, there was a terror to peace. For Shiva and his tribe, this terror came in the form of a neighbouring tribe.

The Shakas were the neighbours to the Guna tribe of Shiva. And the Shakas had made sure to convey that they did not like the Gunas because of their way of living. Shiva's tribe tried its best to be on friendly terms with the Shakas but to no avail. But things got better once Shiva, the son of the chieftain of the Guna tribe married Sati, the daughter of the Chieftain of the Shakas in secret.

There was a thing that both the tribe believed. There should be no bloodshed among the relatives or the Prime creator's anger would fall on them erasing them from existence. Now, since Shiva and Sati had married each other, that made the both of the tribes each other relatives by belief.

However, one night, Daksha the chieftain of the Shakas decided it was enough and his daughter had humiliated him by marrying a Guna. So he and the rest of his tribesmen attacked the Gunas which resulted in a one-sided massacre.

Shiva who had been out practising his dancing and singing skills in the nearby lake was unaware of everything. But not for long. He returned to see that everyone he knew and loved had been hacked into pieces, including his wife Sati. The holy river the Gunas lived next to had been turned into a river of blood. Shiva was struck with grief. He blamed himself for all of it and started banging his head on the stone next to Sati's mangled corpse. He no longer wanted to live but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't die. It was as if the universe had different plans for him.

***

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